


creature comforts

by leftoflovely



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background Joe / Nicky, Booker is MIA and let’s be honest probably three sheets to the wind in a crappy apartment in Paris, Gen, I just want everyone to be cozy ok???, M/M, Nile Freeman-centric, No beta we die like immortals, like super background - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26381074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftoflovely/pseuds/leftoflovely
Summary: The safe houses get noticeably better after Nile joins the team.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 215





	creature comforts

**Author's Note:**

> This is shameless fluff for Nile Week 2020 and my first foray into writing The Old Guard. I have a lot of feelings about Nile taking care of herself, clearly.

The safe houses get noticeably better after Nile joins the team.  
It takes a few months and a few missions that end in shabby apartments and dusty huts with no hot water. After one particularly brutal mission involving organ trafficking in Peru, Nile looks at Joe, Andy and Nicky eating MREs at a rickety lacquered table under flickering fluorescent lights. She knows there’s nicer places to stay in this town, small as it is, because they drove past them.  
“You guys are pretty rich, right?” Nile asks. She’s seen the emailed bank statements since Copley has taken over, securing their accounts in anonymous trusts and changing up the team’s investment portfolio. There were a lot of zeroes in those emails, so the sparse accommodations must be force of habit more than anything.  
Joe is poking suspiciously at his shelf-stable meal. Nicky has a smudge of soap residue on his ear because the lukewarm water turned ice cold five minutes into his shower. Nile opted not to take one at all.  
Andy shrugs.  
“I guess,” she says.  
Nile rolls her eyes. 

The next mission Copley sets up for them is in Greenland, tracking and subduing a covert team of hired guns sent by oil barons and a shady political group to sabotage a climate monitoring station on the ice shelf.  
Nile offers to take over setting up the safe house, in the name of pitching in, and starts emailing Copley. 

After the mission is wrapped, the climate scientists saved and the assassins dispatched to the bottom of an ice crevice,  
Nile, Andy, Nicky and Joe stumble out of a rented SUV onto a stone driveway in front of a small cottage.  
It’s been five days in the bone-chilling cold, three of them dying from exposure at least once as they piled all available warm clothing on Andy.  
The house is a small two story, one bedroom on each level, two bathrooms, a cramped kitchen and a living area with overstuffed chairs and a loveseat.  
“Are we in the correct place?” Nicky asks, eyebrows raised, as he opens the door.  
In Nile’s eight months with the team, they’ve never stayed at a safe house like this. The apartments, houses, shacks have always been, well, safe, but nothing very comfortable. They were utilitarian, at best. 

This house is a place to rest, not just survive. There are soft rugs on the floor and framed photos of vast mountains and indigo ocean on the walls.  
There is food in the cupboards and warm quilts on the beds, sheets that were washed just days ago.  
And most importantly, there’s a bathtub.  
Nile smiles at Nicky, nods and locks the door behind her.  
“I would like to introduce you to the magic of AirBnB,” Nile says.  
They won’t stay here long, just a day or two before moving to one of the houses they own for a stretch of down time. But Nile can already feel herself relaxing, limbs warming up and tension dissipating from her spine.  
Andy wanders into the kitchen, opening the fridge to see shelves of food, produce and meat and cheese. There’s a craggy, bronze loaf of bread on the table and coffee in the cupboard — and a bottle of vodka in the freezer.  
“How did you —“ Andy starts.  
“A few extra krone will go a long way,” Nile says.  
Nicky and Joe have already wandered off into the first-floor bathroom and Nile heads upstairs. 

The main bathroom isn’t big but it’s large enough to hold a bathtub, and Nile fills it with steaming water while she sheds later after layer of cold-weather clothing, lighting a candle on the counter just because it’s there.  
She piles her braids on top of her head and slips into the water, almost too hot on her chilled skin, and moans.  
Nile feels the stress of the mission seep out of her joints and into the humid air. Time slows down as she closes her eyes, head tilted back, and lets her thoughts drift.  
The water cools and Nile gets out, draining the tub and calling softly downstairs to Andy that it’s open. Nicky and Joe are probably still in the downstairs bathroom because their post-mission ritual usually takes longer, as much about reconnecting and reassuring each other as it is getting clean.  
Nile retrieves her go bag, unearths a vacuum-sealed package of clothes and supplies. Dark blue flannel pajamas and soft, fuzzy socks. She takes her time with a tin of lotion, soothing skin chapped by artic wind. 

Nile pads downstairs, smelling butter and something nutty. Nicky is stirring mushrooms into foaming butter in a pan on the stove and humming, a bowl of eggs and small mountain of cheese on the counter next to him, soon to become a frittata.  
Joe pours tea into four mugs, brushes a kiss along Nicky’s jaw before walking over to Nile and handing her a mug.  
Joe wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple, damp curls tickling her ear.  
“You are in charge from now on, you know that, right?” he mutters into her ear.  
“I heard that,” Andy says, walking down the stairs in loose sweatpants and a tank top. She pokes Joe in the ribs as she walks by.  
Nile grins, turning to sink into the couch as Joe ambles back into the kitchen. She hears the sizzle of eggs hitting the hot pan, Nicky murmuring to Joe in Italian.  
The couch sinks slightly as Andy sits next to her, mug in hand, and Nile turns to face her, burrowing her toes under Andy’s thigh for warmth.  
“So?” Nile asks, wiggling her toes a bit.  
Andy grabs her ankle in protest, then stills, squeezing once.  
Nile watches as Andy gazes out of the window at plump snowflakes falling from the dark sky.  
Either Nicky or Joe has started a fire in the fireplace, and wood crackles and hisses as warmth radiates from the hearth.  
The corners of Andy’s mouth tilt up, barely a smile on anyone else.  
“Yea, kid, I guess you can stay.”


End file.
